In the Spring 2009 issue of Utne Independent Press Award nomineeMeatpaper, Robyn Eckhardt traces the roots of this “seductive combination of tender pork meat, stomach and intestines, and fragrant broth that varies from mild and meaty to unmistakably medicinal.”

Meat bone tea, or bak kut, Eckhardt writes, “is comfort food of the first order, with an appetite-rousing aroma and luxurious amounts of fatty meat unfettered by vegetable distractions.”